Left Shell Point (near St. Marks, FL) at 8:00 am when it was 17
degrees in Tallahassee. The temp on the boat was 25. Very low tide
caused by N wind made it too low to get out so we spent two hours
waiting till we finally cleared the channel at 10:00 am. Light wind
from SW and we motor sailed toward Clearwater. Very cold and we all
huddled in cockpit in parkas. No other vessels in sight for over 24
hours.

No moon at all so it was dark. At midnight, we were a little more
than halfway and were 15 miles south of Cedar Key. I was down below
napping, Krista and Jared at watch, when I went below I could see
Pegasus setting in the western sky through the companionway. About an
hour later, I woke up for some reason and things seemed odd and
looking up through the companionway I saw Orion instead of Pegasus so
I went out to see the jib on the wrong side and we were pointing NW
and the main started flogging and the wind became strong. Dropped the
main, partially furled the jib as the wind came up more and put us
back on course.

It soon became kinda rough with the wind clocking to the north.
Decided to seek shelter up between Cedar keys and Crystal River so
began heading due east. After two hours we were far enough into the
lee of the land for the seas to drop and we kept going east because I
wanted to simply anchor so we could all rest. I also wanted to top
off my diesel because my gage is bad and although it seems full I hear
it sloshing. By daylight we are near the Nuke power plant entrance
near Crystal River and decide to go into Crystal River.

Go into Crystal River Channel and hit bottom in the channel (my draft
is 3’10”) and we cannot get through no matter what we do so we leave
again after spending over 7 hours heading toward Crystal River. Motor
sail all the way to Tarpon Springs with wind dropping to zero over a
few hours. Arrived at Tarpon Springs at 6:00 pm for a sea buoy to sea
buoy time of 31 hours, about 5 hours more than I expected due to the
Crystal River detour.

Docked at Port Tarpon Marina, rented a slip for a month, got a rental
car and drove back to Tallahassee.

The kids (actually, Krista is 23 and Jared is 24) although they both
were constantly cold. I was cold but not enough to complain. They
both seemed to need more rest than I. Somehow, I get keyed up and
cannot sleep on such a trip. They both did very well learning how to
use the charts and how to plot their positions on the charts.

I was obvious that although both had done considerable sailing on the
protected waters of the St John’s River while attending UNF in
Jacksonville, open water sailing was different to them and the motion
of the boat was initially alarming to them in the swells when the wind
came up., so this was good experience for them. I always thought I
got seasick easily but I did not this time and they were nauseous.